3. Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is a manifestation of the continuum of violence against women (VAW) that occurs within the private domain.

Men, children, and the elderly also fall victim to private-sphere violence.

The historically rooted unequal power relations between women and men create a patterN in which being a woman is a major risk factor in all socioeconomic classes and across all cultures.

The gendered nature of domestic violence continues to be ignored, however, in public discourse, policy, legislation, and criminal-justice proceedings.
This is a very troubling image that obviously captures our attention immediately and while it could be interpreted in different ways, sometimes it is not until we are extremely shocked that we pay attention to a certain issue.

the full scope and systematic dimension of the problem is often minimized by attributing gender-based violence to a combination of contextual factors, such as the actions of deviant, alcoholic, unemployed, and dishonorable men.

Violence against women is also attributed to inherently misogynous cultures; and provocative female behavior.

The acknowledgment of VAW, particularly domestic violence, as a human-rights concern represents a turning point in the international gender-equality agenda.

Despite these developments and overwhelming evidence of the prevalence of domestic violence in all societies, public-sphere violence continues to be the main focus of human-rights debates.

Domestic violence, on the other hand, is viewed by states as well as human-rights groups as an issue, where women are treated in isolation as victims in need of protection.

Engagement with domestic violence as a human-rights concern has been transformative in at least three ways: mainstream human-rights language and practice came to include private-sphere violations; the doctrine of state responsibility expanded to include the actions of non-state actors; and new species of crimes, such as domestic violence and marital rape, were incorporated into criminal-justice systems.

Although some violence will always occur within interpersonal relations in the private sphere, ending domestic violence—understood as a tool of patriarchal control over women—intrinsically requires that the problem be approached within an empowerment rather than a victimization framework.

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